pickThis was excellent though it definitely reminded me of The School for Good Mothers. The author gets into a lot of random topics without disrupting the flow of the story.
#DoubeSpin @TheAromaofBooks
TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 5d
pickThis was excellent though it definitely reminded me of The School for Good Mothers. The author gets into a lot of random topics without disrupting the flow of the story.
#DoubeSpin @TheAromaofBooks
pick5 Stars • The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a dystopian novel set in a future LA where surveillance is next-level creepy. Sara, a Moroccan American mom and historian, gets nabbed at the airport because her dreams—tracked by a brain implant—supposedly show she might hurt her husband. She‘s tossed into a shady detention center run by a corporation called Safe-X. ⬇️
pickFinally got around to this futuristic story where you can have a chip implanted in your brain to help you sleep. Who wouldn‘t want to sleep better? On the down side, however, the chip company can see your dreams and then determine if you are a threat to society. Narrator Sara is thus detained at LAX and sent to a retention center, a prison of sorts, where she will be under observation for three weeks to determine if she actually is a threat. ⬇️
so-so⭐️⭐️⭐️
Imagine your dreams were government surveilled. Pretty horrifying! I loved this premise, but this dragged on for ages. Something about the execution just didn‘t work for me.
pickI'll rate it a pick for the scare value (the consequences of trading privacy and freedom for convenience under surveillance capitalism) and for daring to have a not especially sympathetic MC. But, oh, did it drag... right up until it got wind of the finish line, towards which it fairly galloped!
Maybe I've got the peri-menopausal rage-tinted spectacles on again, but isn't it also about how this economic culture depends on unpaid female labour?
so-soI really enjoy apocolyptic stories and was looking forward to this one. But it just didn‘t meet the mark. I thought that it was a slow read but it did pick up closer to the end. After this entire slow read I was hopeful for a nice wrapped up ending but it just seemed to end. I was like WHAT?!?!
May reads: 7 tense reads this month. Usually this month is my highest of the year, but due to my focus on my physical and mental health and a very busy time at work, it‘s a little low. Don‘t think I will make my yearly reading goals.
My favorite read has to be The Dream Hotel.
pickLalami's writing is sometimes a little obvious in its intentions, but this one plays with nuance a little better than The Other Americans, which I appreciate. It's definitely paranoia-inducing, so if you're reading fiction to avoid doomscrolling or if you don't want to look at your smart devices with suspicion, this might not be your best option. But aside from those caveats, I quite enjoyed this one.
